Business Management: Which are you - a Boss, a Leader, or a Manager?

I'm an entrepreneur and own my own business. I am a writer and author of fiction, romance, and children's books. I have worked for different companies under management professionals, who have several types of management experiences and skills. I can relate to each Boss, Leader, Manager, even Supervisory types, some of which I really enjoyed working for and some who I will never work for again. I am sure others have had similar experiences. Enjoying the

job and working for a good company is not enough for employees to continue working for extended periods of time. They need good leadership, someone who understands their needs, guidance, and a good training program.

Business management and overseeing projects can be rewarding, challenging, and sometimes overwhelming. As a boss, a leader, a manager, or a supervisor, planning, organizing, and controlling the work to achieve specific goals is your responsibility. The respect and trust you receive is earned by the staff you manage. They need to know you have the knowledge, skills, experience, a willingness to help them and you care about them as an individual. Your management abilities, attitude towards others, experience, and motivation will reflect on how your staff performs.

What type of leader are you? What type of leaders run your business?

What type of leader are you?

Do you have what it takes to motivate and empower your staff?

Are you a dictator, delegator, or are you enjoying glory independently? 

Ask yourself these questions to understand your skills, personality, and management techniques. These are only a few questions that might be on a skills or personality test. I recommend that if you have time, to take a test like this to help you identify who you are as a leader.

1)      When you are managing your staff, which of the following approaches do you usually take?

a.       I identify the needs of my staff and train them myself.

b.       I create a detailed plan, then provide coaching to individual team members and in groups.

c.       After diagnosing the employee's needs, I use a training program, with a 'buddy system' using more experienced team members to train new and existing employees together, creating effective results.

d.       I empower my staff, providing motivation and delegation, to encourage participation and development opportunities, and advancements.

2)      How do you identify the areas of our business that need coaching, training, and development?

a.       I make my best judgement based on observations in specific areas of the business.

b.       I use standardized plans based on the team member’s roles within the business.

c.       I empower team members to determine their own needs, whether it be training, equipment needed, coaching, or advancement requests.

d.       I use unique skills to determine the needs and causes or problematic areas for each individual staff member.

3)      What type of team environment do you create for your staff within your business?

a.       Leader – I have an open-door policy for my staff to reach out to me first before others.

b.       Transparency – I create ‘visibility’ by ensuring that each team member shares their training and goals with each other.

c.       Autonomous – I allow and encourage team members to interact with each other, formally and informally, with minimal interference from me.

d.       Informal – I spend a lot of time interacting with team members in informal settings.

There are several types of management positions needed to run a business. Identify which type of management person makes a good fit for your business, depending on the area of the business.

Which type of leader are you?

Are you a Boss, Leader, or Manager?

Here are definitions to consider with the pros and cons.

Boss – This person is primarily focused on authority. They give orders and dictate tasks. They enforce deadlines with authority, which primarily stem from their position. A Boss only manages team members. He plans a layout and sets goals. He has specific expectations and delegates with authority to meet specific deadlines or results. He works towards recognition from higher management with minimal recognition towards team members who assisted with the achievements.

Leader – This person inspires and motivates team members to achieve goals shared among the team and management. They focus on building a positive work environment. They empower team members to become more experienced and leaders. A Leader has more power than a Boss with their decisions and actions. They have a positive personality and attitude. A Leader listens to employees, forms an understanding of the employee's needs, and works with the employee for better results.

Manager – This person concentrates on organization, overseeing the work performed, delegates to achieve goals, and responsible for the team’s performance to meet deadlines. They primary focus on execution and have some leadership skills to support and encourage their team. A Manager is responsible for meeting goals, successful results, and can be limited in authority.

Pros & Cons:

Boss – Pros - This person makes quick decisions, enforces rules with clear expectations, monitors work closely while making sure to meet deadlines. This person has a well-defined framework for employees to follow. A Boss pushes for quick results especially for immediate results in urgent situations. A Boss is commonly associated with being a perfectionist, referring to a more controlling and detail-oriented leadership style. Unfortunately, this can manifest as excessively focus on flaws and unrealistic expectations for employees.

Cons – A Boss is typically an antagonist, not very collaborative or open to change, convinced of the efficacy of their approach, displaying entitlement emotions. An antagonist is not a favor of most employees. A Boss micromanages employees to the point of employee frustration and the feeling of being overwhelmed, having at times unreasonable expectations. This person likes to avoid or ignore conflicts between team members that have nothing to do with basic tasks or assignments. A Boss is overly focused on details and not on empowering and recognizing employee’s work. This person does not actively seek input or innovative ideas from team members, which leads to a decrease in team morale. This person is seen as a dictator and does not like feedback, questions, or criticism, even if it is constructive criticism. This person struggles to motivate team members beyond the basic tasks and demands of the Boss. The Boss has a tendency of overlooking the cause of problems, in hopes the problem will go away by itself. This person likes recognition of accomplishments from upper management, even though the work was done by team members or lower management. A Boss lacks recognition and rewards of others.

Leader – Pros – This person inspires and motivates team members to achieve their best work and potential. A Leader is conscientious, behaving warm and compassionate towards employees and provides a collaborative, supportive work environment. Conscientious leaders appear more agreeable to employees, which is sometimes counterintuitive to productivity and target-oriented growth. This person encourages innovative ideas so team members will grow professionally and possibly become leaders in the business.

Cons – A Leader struggles to enforce strict deadlines and has difficulties managing conflicts effectively. This person sometimes has a vision that is not clearly communicated to team members causing confusion and frustration.

Manager – Pros – This person is an expert in planning, organizing, and delegating tasks and goals. A Manager can identify problems or situations effectively. They focus on workflows and systems to achieve satisfactory results. A manager type balances management and leadership skills to achieve desired results.

Cons – This management type can lose sight of the bigger picture, feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. This person prioritizes short-term goals over long-term goals and lacks vision. They can feel overwhelmed trying to focus on details and not trust employees to do the job or make good decisions. A Manager can be stressed due to the pressure of accountability and to achieve specific results.

Leadership comes with several different titles such as:

• CEO

• COO

• District Manager

• General Manager

• Manager

• Supervisor

• Team Leader

Each of these leadership roles have unique responsibilities, ways to manage employees and team members, or departments.

Now that you have several types of leadership and personality traits, which leadership type are you?

Talent, skills, and knowledge to successfully manage any business.

• What skills and talents each team member brings to the business for succession

• The staff members' work experiences, individual experiences, skills, and knowledge

• The type of personalities employees and managers must determine the best place to fit these individuals within the organization such as customer service, administration, managing or supervising others, a cook chef or pastry chef, and an IT individual.

• Decide if hiring an independent contractor or outside agency is better and will save money versus paying an employee hourly wages or a salary, their benefits, workers compensation, and unemployment, if the employee leaves or is laid off.

Understanding the importance of each individual employee and your management team will help you identify and determine the labor needed to run the business, pay scales, benefits, and other costs relating to labor. Higher skilled employees will receive better pay, depending on their experience, skills, knowledge, motivation, and willingness to train others such as your management team, chefs, head cooks, team leaders and so on. Labor and benefit costs are the most manageable area in a business, outside of paper costs and office expenses.

Strategic planning is essential for succession in any business. You need a well thought out plan, capital to start up and run on, skills, and experience to be successful. Collaborating with others such as friends, family, a board, or a partner, when starting a business and after the business is up and running, refreshing your goals and deadlines is necessary for succession.